


Land of Mere Suspension

by lizthefangirl



Series: Transmissions [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, F/M, Head and Heart, Post-Canon, Praimfaya, Spoilers, The Ark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11058978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizthefangirl/pseuds/lizthefangirl
Summary: Bellamy receives Clarke's transmissions over six years, but is unable to respond.





	Land of Mere Suspension

**Author's Note:**

> (The title is from "Requiem on the Water" by Imperial Mammoth).
> 
> I realized after I wrote it that Clarke's cell (the Skybox) wasn't on the Ark at all. But it is in this fic, and so we're going to work with that. There's also a different ending than part one—it's more of a companion piece!
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading. Feedback is more than welcome!
> 
> \- Liz.xx

 

 

 _True, it's chilling to behold_  
_Up close we stumble backwards laughing in our boats_  
_Till the image sinks away to someplace far but certain_  
_A land of mere suspension where someday we must go_  
 

* * *

 

_The sunlight shone through the trees, onto her hair—green and gold. Clarke surveyed the valley beneath them, that little crease between her brows. “Not long now,” she murmured._

_She always said these things. Cryptic, awaiting. Though he never got a real answer, he still ventured, “Until what?”  
_

_This time, she peered at him, eyes sad. “’Til you have to go.”_

_Bellamy stared, surprised. He shook his head slowly. “I’m not going anywhere, Clarke.”_

_She just smiled, stray locks of hair drifting over her face as she tilted her head to the sky. “But you already did,” she said softly._

_He followed her gaze, heart hammering as he saw the rocket take off in the distance. “No,” he rasped. “No, I’m right here—”  
_

_She was gone. The trees bore a metallic sheen, branches becoming angular—square. Vines turned into tubing, stretching and elongating towards the horizon until he sat in a hallway, thousands of miles above—_

 

* * *

 

**99 DAYS**

He woke with a start, tremors wracking his body. As usual, his skin was slick with sweat, but he wasn’t warm—just the opposite.

 _An oxymoron_ , she quipped in his mind. 

Bellamy snarled, throwing the covers off of him and stumbling to the sink in the attached bathroom. The light flickered on at the movement, and he splashed water over his face and neck, suddenly feverish. 

He dabbed away the excess moisture on a towel, catching his reflection as he stormed out—bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes, cheekbones jutting. They’d all lost a bit of weight since they’d arrived on the Ark due to their new diet, but he could hardly keep down a meal the first couple weeks. 

Mind still addled by the dream, he wondered if she knew—had known—how she’d shaped him. He had always been malleable in her hands. She was right, of course, when she told him he lived by his heart; it was always the people he loved that drove him.

Most of them existed in memory, now.

There was a time, not so long ago, when knowing that his sister was safe—and she was, as safe as the ruined planet would allow—would have been enough. Always her, his whole life. 

He had never anticipated that another person would wrap her fingers around his heart, his lungs. That even in death, the grip would not relinquish, but hold firm.

 _Use your head,_ Clarke chided.

“Trying to,” he shot back, flopping onto the cot. “But you won’t get out of it.”

**100 DAYS**

Raven was fiddling with something in one of the main rooms early the next morning, as she had been for the past few days. She’d waved everyone off when they’d tried to ask about it, until she simply bit out, “ _Radio.”_

No one bothered her further, knowing that logic was the last thing she needed. 

Bellamy studied her, concerned. She looked worse than he did. Murphy told him this was how she had been in the lab—completely out of it. Only, she wasn’t now, he was sure. She was still present, just… focused. Obsessed. 

A high-pitched keen rang out, and he covered his ears. “Ow?”

She didn’t respond. Her movements had quickened in the last minute, eyes sparking. “C’mon,” she hissed, turning a knob. 

The same noise rang out, twice as deafening. He imagined his friends being startled awake, half-expecting to hear Murphy bellow from his quarters—

“ _I really need to go outside, Bellamy.”_

He stopped breathing. 

Raven sagged, a slow smile crossing her features as Clarke—voice riddled with static, but still— _Clarke_ —spoke again.

“ _I think I’ve memorized every inch of this fucking place—”_

“Say something back!” he cried, hoarse. “Raven—”

“I can’t,” she whispered, eyes glassy. “But she’s there. She’s alive.”

He was shaking. He sank down next to her, bringing his ear to the speaker. 

“ _Even hoped there might’ve been a spare rocket tucked away someplace…_   _If I could get up there to you, I would. I’d do anything.”_

There was a click, and she was gone, leaving them in hollow silence. 

**365 DAYS**

Raven eventually installed the radio into the control room’s console, and the transmissions continued, every single day around the same time in the late night or early morning. Some were devastatingly brief, others went on for minutes. And every one of them was addressed to him. 

Eight months, and they still couldn’t find a way to radio her back—it was simply not possible with the equipment on hand, Raven informed them. 

Still, he would be a fool if he didn’t hold onto every word. 

The day after the first message, the others listened with varying levels of awe as her voice rang out in the next one. Even Murphy and Echo appeared to be suppressing emotion. 

“ _I, uh. I started drawing again.”_

These words came one year after Praimfaya, and he alone heard them. The others had not joined him that night to listen, and he was glad for it, moved by their understanding.

“Wish I could see,” he murmured back, mouth curving into a grin.

“ _I haven’t told you before, because… I dunno. I’ve drawn all seven of you—even Echo. You’re hard to draw, did you know that? Not because you’re too handsome to be properly rendered on paper. Don’t flatter yourself, Blake.”_ He snorted. “ _I think it’s the hair. Or maybe the eyes…”_ Her voice grew slurred with sleep. _“Or the freggles. Hm…_ ” 

After a minute or so of silence, he clicked off the radio. That night, he went to sleep with a smile on his face for the first time he could recall in over a year.

**410 DAYS**

He stood outside of her old cell. 

Since he’d forced himself to check the surviving prisoner records a week before to confirm its location, he had come here every night, unable to enter. He had the code memorized, but his legs seemed hardwired to the floor. 

Her transmissions were everything. And… nothing. They were ephemeral, there and gone. But this room… She’d been held inside during one of the darkest times of her life, and he was afraid of what he’d find within. Yet it called to him— _she_ called to him.

So he used his head to open his heart, dialing the numbers into the key pad until a faint _beep_ sounded. The door slid away, dim lights flickering to life.

Blood pounded in his ears at the sight of walls covered in drawings—exquisite sketches of all that existed on the ground. He recognized the monuments they studied in history books, as well as the various plants and animals. Her bunk was untouched. He hadn’t realized his legs had carried him forward until he glimpsed at his feet.

It was a night scene, a slender moon hovering above the trees, reflecting onto a lake below. An image that neither of them imagined they would ever see, years ago. A memory brushed at the back of his mind as he studied the sea of stars.

 _I wouldn’t even know what to wish for,_ he’d said to her once. 

He knew now. Every second, he knew. 

Careful not to smudge the marks, he lowered himself beside them, welcoming the exhaustion that swelled and dragged him under.

**521 DAYS**

_“I went outside today._   _I went_ outside _and I didn’t_ die _!_ ”

All seven passengers laughed (at least, the five that were capable of freely expressing emotion), sharing in her relief. Monty cuffed the back of Bellamy's neck. 

 _“Maybe someone else is alive, after all… Maybe they’re even cute._ ”

This drew chuckles all around, and Bellamy vowed that he’d deny the heat that rose in his cheeks at her words until his dying day. 

**702 DAYS**

_“Bellamy. Your rover is trying to kill me.”_

He beamed at her irked tone. He had wondered if she would locate it. It had been Monty’s suggestion, to stash it away with some extra fuel—on the off chance of survivors, he’d reasoned.

She was certainly that.

For a few minutes, the feed went silent, until the strong hum of the engine crackled over. “ _I have conquered the beast_ ,” she announced. “ _Raven will be so proud.”  
_

She was, when he told her the next morning.

**902 DAYS**

“ _I found some guns on the opposite end of the island. They were tucked away in a barrel, just like the ones we found that first year on the ground. Only, these were in pieces._

 _“… You remember that, Bellamy? That was… quite a trip._ ”

Did he remember? He loosed a breath, exasperated. _Did he remember._

Long before now, the memories of that day—however warped by the hallucinogens they’d ingested—met him frequently. In the time she’d been away after Mount Weather, he would abruptly recall those odd, tender moments as he loaded his rifle, hands faltering in the memorized movements.

It was all fleeting sensations: His arms circling her own, such a natural gesture until the vaguely soapy, earthy scent of her hair hit his nose. Until he became aware of his heart stuttering in his chest at the way she held the weapon, with such stubborn determination. The realization that she was _letting_ him touch her, instruct her—such a departure from their initially venomous encounters.

It had stolen the breath from his lungs, and thoroughly complicated things.

Clarke had gone quiet on the radio, but he lingered. When the words came through, his quiet fondness vanished at her quivering voice. “ _Bellamy, I… I hope you’re alive. I hope you all are. But if you aren’t—”_

A sob tore from her throat. He stared at the speaker in wounded shock, flinching as he heard a sharp crack, as if she’d dropped her own. Panic flared, but he forced it down, waiting, waiting—

“ _I’ll see you again_ ,” she said, words clipped with resolve. She was so accustomed to silence, and he _hated_ it. How many times over that year on the ground had he wanted to reach for her, comfort her, and decided against it? _Wasted_ it?

“Yes, you will,” he strained anyway, knuckles white on the edge of the console. “You will, Clarke.”

 **1,109 DAYS**  

 _“So you will never believe what happened today,”_ she hissed. _“I found another person. A little nightblood girl named Madi.”_

Today, Bellamy sat with Echo, of all people. She’d slinked into the room to listen. Even after three years in a confined space, they didn’t exactly have a friendly report, but they were civil enough. She cooperated with the rest of the team, and came in handy as he’d anticipated with tasks involving brute strength or a warrior’s precision. He couldn’t help but be moved by her moments of restrained surprise at the eternal night around her over the months—both hers and Emori’s. Each time it happened, he’d see Octavia in her makeshift mask, beaming as she gazed out the window. 

Echo’s eyes widened as she heard the news. Clarke went on to tell them how the child had travelled to the island on a raft, following her mother’s instructions. He was struck by the same awe in her soft words.

_“Bellamy, I’ve never had a… Someone younger than me. You had Octavia, and I… I know I just found her, but I don’t want anything to happen to her. I won’t let anything happen to her.”_

He felt… He couldn’t name it, exactly. Pride? Relief? Echo’s staunch eyes were on his face, and he glanced at her, emotions shuttering. “What?”

She remained expressionless, but only just, a lilt to her full mouth. “You were smiling,” she said.

**1,481 DAYS**

The crew aboard the Ark was enraptured by word of Clarke’s new companion. They listened eagerly over the next year as she would recount the girl’s steady progress in learning English, her existing knowledge of hunting and wildlife from Trikru, and general quirks she possessed that seemed to amuse Clarke to no end. Some while ago, the pair had decided it was time to return to the mainland, check on the remnants of Polis and the surrounding territories. All of them were anxious to know the state of the bunker and those it held.

Clarke told them of the failed vessels they’d constructed together to carry themselves, supplies, and the rover, though her hopeful tone never erred. At last, they successfully hit the current, using the satellite in the lab to ensure an ideal sailing forecast. She gave limited reports in the days of the voyage and Bellamy’s stress would subside each time they arrived. 

On the third day, her transmission was delayed longer than all the rest—by almost a full twenty-four hours. Everyone had paused in their tasks, riddled with worry. 

“ _We’ve hit the mainland,”_ she crowed, causing her friends start suddenly. Many were keeled over with sleep. Their eyes cleared quickly as they processed the information. “ _The rafts worked. Even the one for the rover.”_ In the background, high, muffled cheering rang out. “ _I can’t believe we pulled it off, after all of those tests—”  
_

_“I want to talk to him,_ ” a young voice announced. 

The others exchanged bemused looks, and he shot them a withering expression, flushing. They had heard Madi speak several times, but never directly into the receiver. Nerves crept into his gut at how important this child had become to Clarke—to all of them.

Then she spoke, plain as day. “ _Bell-amy. Clarke says that you are tall.”_

Stunned silence swept the room, promptly shattered by peals of laughter.He waved at them to be quiet, even though a low chuckle had bubbled past his lips at her matter-of-fact tone. 

The child continued, only a vague inflection to her words, which came quite smoothly. “ _It is night and the moon is full. You have black hair, and my hair is brown. Almost black.”_ Finally, she finished through a yawn, “ _I want to see the ship, please_.”

Harper brought a hand to her mouth, eyes lined with silver. Monty smiled sadly. Murphy’s eyes went to the floor, though Emori’s hand tightened around his. Raven stared at the controls as if she could see the wiring beneath. Echo lifted her chin slightly, face blank. 

Bellamy wordlessly rose out of his chair and walked out. They knew better than to follow him. 

He didn’t leave Clarke’s cell until the next transmission was due to arrive, and when it did, he listened alone.

**1,623 DAYS**

  _“Bellamy, the temple collapsed. The bunker is sealed underneath. I’ve tried to reach them on the radio, but it still isn’t working.”_

_“I am so sorry, Bellamy. I thought… I thought…”_

The knowledge struck the group like a blow. They’d all seen Polis leveled in the lab. They knew the planned protocol: Five years of resources, of refuge, and then… The last of the clans was to rise from the ashes.

Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to them that the ashes simply would not permit it.

**1,795 DAYS**

_“A month,”_  Clarke said faintly, desperately. “ _You could be back here in a month, Bellamy. You could—you could meet Madi, and…”_ She paused, catching her breath. “ _Thirty days. Why do I get the feeling they will be longer than the past 1,795?”_ She laughed weakly.

Thousands of miles above, Bellamy squeezed his eyes shut, an empty glass in hand, the nearly drained Baton sitting before him with hardly a finger left.

Because it wasn’t thirty more days. It would be another hundred. Two hundred. Another  _year_ , at most.

And she couldn’t know. He couldn’t tell her. 

He eyed the liquor. 

“ _I miss you. I need you back here—”_

He almost dropped the glass as he lunged to click off the radio, forcing himself to exhale. He knew the exact date he would finally down the remaining contents, yet he sat tempted each night, contemplating it until his vision blurred.

 _Use your head._ This time, the command was in his own voice, not hers.

He put the bottle away.

**1,825 DAYS**

He wouldn’t drink from it when the day finally came. For the first time in a little under five years, he didn’t tune in to her message. No, he would put as much space between himself and that transmission as possible.

When he arrived at Echo’s quarters, he told himself he was still following Clarke’s instructions—using his head. Because it was a plain fact that the kind of pain ripping through him could be stifled by only a few things, and alcohol wasn’t strong enough. His arm didn’t feel like his own as he rapped on the door. She answered it almost immediately. 

No words came, but he could see that she had anticipated this on some level. And he wholeheartedly expected her to let him enter—not because he was entitled to her or anyone, but because she understood ravenous emotion, and what relieved it. 

But she did not shift. She merely looked at him, unyielding. “It will not be enough,” she said at last. 

He blinked. “I know.”

“It will not help you.”

At this, he glanced away, jaw working. “You don’t know that.”

“I do know,” she spat. 

He met her eyes, saw the fractures there and swallowed his shame. “Please,” he breathed, voice cracking.

She held his gaze. “Azgeda has a proverb,” she began.  _“’Kom ai tombom, ai nou slip daun.’”_ He pieced the words together a moment before she translated, “’To my heart, I do not fall.’” 

“That’s a shitty proverb,” he said dryly, dismissing her cold expression. “It’s not possible. We all fall to it, in the end.”

She did not respond, only leaned out slightly, looking towards the end of the hall. A window revealed the curve of the earth, an ember still smoldering after all these years. “Or we rise above it,” she murmured. Some emotion had surfaced on her face, and he quickly averted his eyes. The entire basis of his being here was detachment, which had managed to dissolve in the person who wore it best. 

“Tell me what to do,” he pleaded roughly. “Don’t tell me to fight it. To overcome it, because I can’t. I won’t. I—I left her five years ago, and I’m leaving her again today.” His eyes stung in wake of the truth, pressure building in his chest. 

He was relieved that there wasn’t a whisper of sympathy on her face as she studied him. But a wrinkle formed between her brows, as much expression as he’d ever seen from her. She seemed to steel herself before she spoke. “My king banished me, and still I tried to save him,” she said huskily. “The only time that I have saved someone is you, when we arrived here. And that was fulfilling a life debt.”

He dipped his chin, remembered finding her upstairs, covered in warpaint with a blade to her gut. The woman who he had saved once before in Mount Weather, who had killed Gina, who would have gladly killed his sister. When he stopped her the second time, it was because she would be an asset to the group. It was because time was running out and Clarke had not returned, and she would not have let her die. 

“Do not waste my efforts by breaking yourself further, Bellamy,” Echo ordered. “And do not dishonor her fealty to you after all this time.” 

He stiffened at the words, left gaping at the door as it slid closed. 

**1,833 DAYS**

“You sure?” 

Monty spoke, sitting with Raven and Bellamy in the control room. For the past week, he’d been unable to listen to the transmissions. The others had, though—and each one looked ill afterwards. But he needed to hear her voice, even if it was agonized. He needed to face this. 

“Yeah,” he rumbled. Monty still hesitated, glancing at Raven before turning on the radio, which had notified them of an incoming signal a moment before. 

“ _—been five years, and a week. It’s been_ five years.” 

She sounded hysterical. Bellamy bent until his forearms rested on his thighs, fingers curling into fists to keep them from trembling. 

“ _Clarke?”_ Madi’s voice was barely a ripple in the static. 

“ _I told you to go to sleep, Madi. I’m sorry, please just—go to sleep.”_ A pause, then louder, sharper:  _“_ Please! _I can’t talk to you right now, I can’t—it’s been five years. It’s been five years, and he’s not—”_ Her voice cracked. “ _Oh, God._ Bellamy.”

The feed cut out. 

He covered his face with his hands, unable to conceal his wheezing gasps, the way his shoulders quaked. He heard Monty’s shoes scuffle against the floor, a placating hand appearing on his shoulder, squeezing tight. Raven rubbed soothing circles on his back, pressing herself close. Both of them barely controlled the sounds of their own grief. 

“She’s strong, Bellamy,” Monty said a while later, after they’d parted. “She won’t give up.”

“Neither will we,” Raven finished, quiet and fierce.

He could tell that they truly believed what they said, and he willed himself to do the same.

**2,059 DAYS**

Clarke’s words did not stop coming. Slowly, their tone seemed to shift to something like determined optimism. A little over half a year later, she reported that they had found other nightblood children hiding away in Polis, and had managed to convince them to join their ranks. Together, with the oldest of the eight, they continued to attempt to remove the rubble blocking the bunker, to no avail.

 _“But if I know your sister,”_ she told him, _“there’s no way she isn’t still fighting.”_

He smiled a bit, gazing out one of the windows he so often evaded of late. 

The repairs to the rocket were nearly finished. Various studies were completed that could prove helpful to the planet below. Raven now estimated they would be on the ground in a few months.

Hope flared in him, and he clutched to it with all he had.

**2,061 DAYS**

_“Madi found this spot for us the other day, overlooking Azgeda territory. The mountains.”_

Bellamy’s crew was prepping for the trip to the ground.

_“It’s so beautiful. She told me she wants us to come here everyday so that I can talk to you, and she can have her lessons in peace.”_

Each day, information was finalized, forecasts were checked. Trajectories. Emergency procedures.

_“Her English is so good. You can barely hear the accent anymore. I’ve said it before, but you really would love her, Bellamy. All of the kids, I think.”_

He glanced up from the inventory list he was reviewing at her final statement.

Exercising reason was key to surviving up here. He managed it well enough, though his dreams were exempt from control. As the remaining days until the departure dwindled, his dreams seemed to explore both the greatest joys and the worst horrors of his imagination. They fluctuated randomly, and he desperately wished for something to force them away altogether. Last night, it was one of the too-good ones (though the too-bad ones usually started that way). 

He stood on that overlook she’d described at dusk, surveying a sort of party. Madi—who usually appeared in his dreams suspiciously similar to a young Octavia—played with the other Grounder children around a fire, leaping and twirling. The rest of the Ark crew sat in their own parties: Monty and Harper—who cradled an infant in her arms—and John and Emori, smiling down at the child. Echo, sitting stoically with Roan, was dressed like an Azgeda queen. Raven was laughing with Sinclair over some broken device, her leg brace gone; Jasper was drunkenly slow-dancing with Maya, howling the lyrics to some song and dipping her in his arms. Kane and Abby stood by Thelonious and Wells Jaha, chuckling warmly with Miller and Bryan. 

And just across the clearing, Bellamy’s sister met his eyes from where she sat with Lincoln, flashing a grin. 

Best and worst of all, he felt no fear, no guilt when Clarke Griffin appeared at his side, rising on her toes to plant a kiss on his cheek like it was the most natural act in the universe. She smiled at him fondly, hair shorn to her jaw, and handed him a glass before lifting one of her own. “How about that drink?” she said quietly, eyes sparkling in the firelight as they had on a night years before. 

It was an impossible future by all accounts, he told himself. And for that he was grateful. 

**2,199 DAYS**

“Medical stock is good,” Murphy said flatly as he entered the control room with Emori.

“So is fuel,” piped Harper.

“And water,” said Echo.

Bellamy nodded at them, marking the items off his list. “Good. Raven, is the final check done on the repairs?”

“Yeah,” she panted, swiping a hand over her forehead. She held her helmet under her arm. “Everything looks right.”

“And probably won’t explode,” Monty added cheerfully from her side, also in his suit. 

Bellamy breathed in through his nose. “Even better.”

Everything was set for them to leave, but the weather forecast suggested it was best to wait another two to three days. He’d be damned if they stayed a moment longer than that, regardless of what it predicted.

“Hey, Clarke should be on,” Harper said, walking to the radio and clicking it on. He didn’t look up from where he worked, but listened closely as the familiar high-pitched squeal broke into static, and then her voice.

_“—can hear me—if you’re alive—it’s been 2,199 days since Praimfaya.”_

The crew settled around the room as her relaxed voice filled it.

_“I don’t know why I still do this everyday, maybe it’s my way of staying sane, not forgetting who I am—who I was. It’s been safe for you to come down for over a year now, why haven’t you?”_

He stopped writing, as he always did when she said things like that.

_“The bunker’s gone silent too, we tried to get them out for a while, but… there was too much rubble, I haven’t made contact with them either. Anyway, I still have hope—”_

_You still have hope?_ she’d asked him in Arkadia six years before, voice thick with tears.

He didn’t know where his next words came from. But it was a fact, and those were good—certain.  _We still breathing?_ he’d replied.

They were. 

_“Tell Raven to aim for the one spot of green and you’ll find me. The rest of the planet from what I’ve seen basically sucks. So—”_

His head bobbed up as her words cut away, feeling concern spreading amongst the others as the moments passed. And then—

“ _Never mind,”_ she breathed, “ _I see you.”  
_

“What the fuck?” Murphy blurted. 

Bellamy blinked in bewilderment, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he practically threw down his tablet, surging for the radio. He pressed the call button as hard as he could. “ _Clarke_ ,” he rasped. “Clarke.”

Raven’s voice was thin. “Bellamy—”

He cursed, bringing his fist down onto the speaker with such force that it crackled and keened. “Enough,” he barked, turning to the others, their faces drawn. He pointed at the window.  “I do not give a _shit_ if the third apocalypse is waiting for us down there. We have to go—”

Someone else said his name, but he couldn’t—

_Who did she see—_

Ice kissed his throat, and he jolted. Hands clamped down on his arms. 

But all he saw was Echo, glaring at him over her short-sword she always carried, the blade’s edge poised at his jugular. “ _Kom ai tombom, ai nou slip daun,”_ she hissed. 

_To my heart, I do not fall._

He panted, blood pounding in his ears.

 _The only way to make sure we survive,_ Clarke whispered in his head,  _Is if you use_ this, _too._ A phantom finger tapped his temple. 

He relaxed his muscles with a shallow gasp, and waited. The grips on his arms loosened, but Echo did not retreat until he met her eyes. She read his, and stepped away, lowering her weapon. 

They watched him warily. “Raven,” he croaked. “Check the forecast again.”

He didn’t look at her as she complied, fingers clicking rapidly over a keyboard. “It’s the same,” she reported tightly. “Strong storms across Clarke’s region over the next two days, clearing out on the third.”

“She definitely saw a ship,” Monty said quietly. “You could hear it.”

“We haven’t seen another ship _in six years_ ,” Emori choked.

“Wait.” They all looked at Raven. Her brow narrowed, then her eyes widened. “I—hang on. Hang on.” She limped out of the room, Monty glancing back at them in confusion before following her. Harper went next, then Emori. Soon, all seven dashed through the corridor, Bellamy and Murphy at the tail.

Raven sat before a screen in one of the labs, typing frantically. “All records were synced from Becca’s lab. I’ve read them all since we got here, and there was one… Shit, what was it— _here_.” A window popped up, containing what appeared to be an old article. The headline read:

_CONTACT LOST WITH ASTROID MINING PENAL COLONY_

“It was called the Eligius Mining Company,” she explained. “Jackson and Abby… God, it was so long ago, and I’m pretty sure I thought I was imagining it with Becca in my head, but they found some stuff about this while researching nightblood. Which should be in the database…” She made a triumphant noise and another window popped up. “This must have been the record they saw. Criminals were sent to space in hypersleep for long-duration missions. And Becca was supposed to give them nightblood to protect them from solar radiation.” She laughed once and sat back, breathless.

“So… they’ve been woken up, now,” Harper ventured carefully. “Sent back to earth?”

“I mean, it _has_ to be them,” Raven said. “We couldn’t track them on the Ark because they aren’t in range—there are plenty of viable astroids to be mined. Tens of thousands.”

Monty remarked, “Maybe we never found them because we never really looked. Earth was always the priority.”

“Did you say _criminals_?” Murphy asked.

Everyone went quiet. 

“It’s the same,” Bellamy murmured. “It’s the same as six years ago. A batch of delinquents sent to the ground… But Clarke is the Grounder, plus Madi and the others. They might be the _only_ ones. Everyone else is still in that bunker—”

“Mountain men,” Echo whispered. He nodded, grim. 

“We can’t land yet,” Raven said, shaking her head absently. “We _have_ to get to her—alive. We can’t risk leaving too soon.”

“And if they kill her and the kids first?” Murphy said. 

Emori smacked his arm. “ _John.”_

 _“What?_ ”

“They won’t,” Bellamy said firmly, reading the bolded words on the screen a final time before meeting their eyes, one by one. “Because they don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

A slow, feral grin spread over Echo’s face. “ _Wanheda.”_

“No,” he said, thinking about the walls of the prison cell, covered in images of Earth. “Hope.”

 

 


End file.
